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 | Above-average sports drama Among non-enthusiasts, knowledge about competitive cycling is either unknown or limited to the Tour de France (or as some called it, the Tour de Lance, for seven-time winner Lance Armstrong). Making a film about competitive cycling, specifically indoor track cycling, without relying on sports drama clichés, is next to impossible. Directed by Douglas Mackinnon, [b]The Flying Scotsman[/b] recounts Scottish cyclist Graeme Obree brief international success in the early- to mid-nineties where, with a handmade bike and an unorthodox riding position, he held two world records and won the World Championships in 1993 and 1994.More |  | Another Philip K. Dick Misfire Loosely based on "The Golden Man", a short story written in 1954 by Philip K. Dick, the science fiction author whose stories and novels have served as the basis for [b]Blade Runner[/b], [b]Total Recall[/b], [b]Minority Report[/b], and [b]Paycheck[/b], [b]Next[/b] takes one of Dick’s simpler ideas -- limited precognition -- and turns it into a muddled, disappointing science fiction/action/thriller directed by Lee Tamahori ([b]Die Another Day[/b], [b]Mulholland Falls[/b], [b]Once Were Warriors[/b]) with minimal attention to the demands of logic-based storytelling and starring the ubiquitous Nicholas Cage in furrowed-brow, action-hero mode.More |  | No Exit Directed by Nimród Antal ([b]Kontroll[/b]) and written by Mark L. Smith ([b]Séance[/b]), [b]Vacancy[/b] is a slickly accomplished, gripping horror/suspense/thriller about stranded motorists fighting for their lives against killers who get their kicks by re-watching the murders on videotape.More |  | Nothing Can Put This Film Back Together If it’s Friday, it must be time for another psychological/suspense thriller. Like clockwork, [b]Fracture[/b], a psychological thriller/courtroom drama directed by Gregory Hoblit ([b]Hart's War[/b], [b]Frequency[/b], [b] Primal Fear[/b]) and written by Daniel Pyne ([b]The Sum of All Fears[/b], [b]Any Given Sunday[/b]) and Glenn Gers ([b]My Brother's Keeper[/b]), arrives at your local multiplex, with ads and posters that pits the lead actors, Anthony Hopkins, representing the Old Guard, and Ryan Gosling, representing the New Guard, against each other in the proverbial battle of wits.More |  | Please Be Kind, Rewind Written and directed by Jake Kasdan ([b]Orange County[/b], [b]The Zero Effect[/b]), [b]The TV Set[/b] satirizes network television and the inevitable compromises that follow when network executives openly interfere with the creative vision of a writer/producer. Occasionally hilarious but often too obvious in whom it satirizes, [b]The TV Set[/b] feels like it should have been made twenty or twenty-five years ago.More |  | A Misfire of Minor Proportions Mike White’s ([b]Nacho Libre[/b], [b]School of Rock[/b], [b]Chuck and Buck[/b]) directorial debut, [b]Year of the Dog[/b], is a character study of a lonely woman who loses her dog, friend, confidante, and companion rolled into one, and the life-changing events and circumstances that irrevocably change her personality. [b]Year of the Dog[/b] is also a tragicomedy, farther away from White’s broader efforts aimed at general audiences ([b]School of Rock[/b], [b]Orange County[/b]) and closer to White's darker character studies of desperate, eccentric loners ([b]The Good Girl[/b], [b]Chuck and Buck[/b]).More |  | The Killer Next Door Stop me if this sounds familiar: a character witnesses his neighbor murder someone (or it looks like a murder). No one believes him and, along with his girlfriend and/or friend, he's forced to play detective hoping that the police will eventually believe him. But the killer catches on to the hero and he becomes the killer's next target. Sounds like Alfred Hitchcock's classic mystery/thriller, [b]Rear Window[/b], right?More |  | An Existential Drama That Goes Nowhere The tagline for [b]First Snow[/b], helmed by screenwriter-turned-director Mark Fergus asks, “What if someone looked into your future and didn't see tomorrow?” Part character study, part mystery/thriller, part crime-drama, [b]First Snow[/b] misses out on the promising potential inherent in its premise of an egotistical character facing his mortality and the effects that knowledge has on his psyche.More |  | Two for One is Cheap at Twice the Price [b]Grindhouse[/b], Robert Rodriguez ([b]Sin City[/b], [b]Once Upon a Time in Mexico[/b]) and Quentin Tarantino's ([b]Kill Bill[/b], [b]Pulp Fiction[/b]) double paean to the glories of exploitation cinema, is exactly what their fans have come to expect from their previous films: sick, twisted, demented, repulsive fun (and that's meant in the best way possible).More |  | Crime Drama Scores Most moviegoers and television viewers will recognize twenty-six year old actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt from his supporting role in "3rd Rock from the Sun". Post-television, Gordon-Levitt took some time off, briefly went to college, but rather than return to television or mainstream films, decided to go the indie route, seeking out and winning demanding roles portraying complex, emotionally disturbed, haunted young men.More |
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